Could anything have been more delicately devised than this tender and timid message? "You have a woman's heart," he said. And then in the same low voice she began to explain that she would like him to go to the theatre that evening, and that perhaps he would go alone; and would he do her the favor to be in a particular box? She took a piece of paper from her purse, and shyly handed it to him. How could he refuse?--though he flushed slightly. It was a favor she asked. "I will know where you are," she said. And so he was not to bid good-by to her on this occasion, after all. But he bade good-by to Mr. White, and to Miss Carry, who was quite civil to him now that he was going away; and then he went out into the cold and gray December afternoon. They were lighting the lamps. But gaslight throws no cheerfulness on a grave. He went to the theatre later on; and the talisman she had given him took him into a box almost level with the stage, and so near to it that the glare of the foot-lights bewildered his eyes, until he retired into the corner. And once more he saw the puppets come and go, with the one live woman among them whose every tone of voice made his heart leap. And then this drawing-room scene, in which she comes in alone, and talking to herself? She sits down to the piano carelessly. Some one enters unperceived, and stands silent there, to listen to the singing. And this air that she sings, waywardly, like a light-hearted schoolgirl:-- "Hi-ri-libhin o, Brae MacIntyre, Hi-ri-libhin o, Costly thy wooing! Thou'st slain the maid. Hug-o-rin-o, 'Tis thy undoing! Hi-ri-libhin o, Friends of my love, Hi-ri-libhin o, Do not upbraid him; He was leal Hug-o-rin-o, Chance betrayed him." Macleod's breathing came quick and hard. She had not sung the ballad of the brave MacIntyre when formerly he had seen the piece. Did she merely wish him to know, by this arch rendering of the gloomy song, that she was pursuing her Highland studies? And then the last verse she sang in the Gaelic! He was so near that he could hear this adjuration to the unhappy lover to seek his boat and fly, steering wide of Jura and avoiding Mull:-- "Hi-ri-libhin o, Buin Bata, Hi-ri-libhin o, Fag an dathaich, Seachain Mule, Hug-o-ri-no; Sna taodh Jura!" Was she laughing, then, at her pronunciation of the Gaelic when she carelessly rose from the piano, and, in doing so, directed one glance to him that made him quail? The foolish piece went on. She was more bright, vivacious, coquettish than ever: how could she have such spirits in view of the long separation that lay on his heart like lead? Then, at the end of the piece, there was a tapping at the door, and an envelope was handed in to him. It only contained a card, with the message "Good-night?" scrawled in pencil. It was the last time he ever was in any theatre.